In this recently posted video, TED Senior Fellow and neuroscientist Greg Gage, PhD, demonstrates a new smartphone microscope from Backyard Brains, which creates affordable science kits for teaching neuroscience to students of all ages.
Known as the SmartScope, the device works on any type of mobile phone equipped with a camera lens and allows users to perform experiments as well as post images and video of the results to their social networks. As explained on the TED blog:
This sturdy, portable microscope, currently in beta, uses smartphones to view, snap and share magnified objects over Facebook, Twitter and email, and costs $80 – putting cutting-edge experimentation into the hands of students, teachers and the just plain curious.
Gage and colleagues have been using the SmartScope to examine leg re-growth in cockroaches, and he hopes the device will enable students to carry out sophisticated, high-level studies.
Previously: Biotech company founded by teens aims to use mosquitoes to transport vaccines, Scientist’s son uses Dungeons & Dragons as a research tool and Whiz Kids: Investigating healing mechanisms in the oral mucosa
